The Hero’s Journey in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now Essay

     Almost Famous (2000) is a dramatization of writer/director Cameron Crowe’s real-life experiences as a teenage rock reporter for Rolling Stone. Based on thinly-veiled autobiographical material from the precocious beginnings of Crowe’s early career, the screenplay shapes sentimental memories into movie magic. But how did Crowe give his own coming-of-age tale such universal appeal? A closer look reveals that Almost Famous, like most films worth their salt, is yet another incarnation of the greatest and only mythological adventure, “The Hero’s Journey.” This relationship can be explained using the framework of Joseph Campbell’s phenomenal book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces,

In the book, Robert Walton’s pride and confidence is seen in how he views himself, the expectations he has of his journey, and the sacrifices he is willing to make. Walton believes he is superior to all on his ship and claims he will not find a friend onboard. He calls his crew “uneducated”

In both The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now, transitional archetypical roles are used to show the degradation of innocence, as a result of the conflicts of war. In The Things They Carried, Mary Anne Bell, the young girlfriend of solider Mark Fossie, is brought to Vietnam in the heart of the war to be with him. In the beginning of her visit, Mary Anne is extremely soft, kind, and ignorant to the nature of the conflict taking place around her (O’Brien 91). Her relationship with Mark is one that appears as overly romanticized: “Mary Anne Bell and Mark Fossie had been sweethearts since grammar school. […] [someday] they would be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three healthy yellow -haired children.

I have always enjoyed movies. But at some point I started to think of movies as more than just entertainment. I began to view them as a movie critic would, rather than just a casual viewer. Because of this perspective, I think of "Apocalypse Now" as one of the best American made movies I have ever seen. As a student of and an active participant in the late twentieth century media age, I feel justified in making this statement. In my lifetime of observation of American media, including fourteen months of intense movie watching in conjunction with my employment at a local video store, I have had an opportunity to observe a broad sampling of the films, and feel more than qualified to make this statement. By referring to

1. 1984 is a cautionary tale. Argue whether or not we, as a society, have taken his cautions into account. Offer concrete, cited, examples from today’s world and from the text.

In society today, consumerism is a major component in the lives of not only Americans, but around the world. People are constantly looking for the next best thing to replace the things they already have. The purpose of this essay is to break down consumerism by using rhetorical analysis on the commercial for Kia’s new crosstrek, the Niro. This commercial relies heavily on the appeal to humor by having unrealistic, comedic actions. Along with humor, it establishes credibility by having a well-known comedic actress, Melissa McCarthy, as the star. The advertisement also plays on a person’s wanting to be a hero by having the commercial title be “Hero’s Journey.”

Antoinette's story begins when she is a young girl in early nineteenth- century Jamaica. The white daughter of ex-slave owners. Five years have passed since her father, Mr. Cosway, reportedly drunk himself to death. As a young girl, Antoinette lives at Coulibri Estate with her widowed mother, Annette, her sickly younger brother, Pierre.Antoinette spends her days in isolation Discontent, however, is rising among the freed blacks, who protest one night outside the house. Bearing torches, they accidentally set the house on fire, and Pierre is badly hurt. The events of the night leave Antoinette dangerously ill for six weeks. She wakes to find herself in Aunt Cora's care. Pierre has died. When Antoinette is seventeen, Mr. Mason announces on

In Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, both Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola create similar statements through their creations as they both centralize their views upon the effects of environmental changes that affect the human condition. The film Apocalypse Now vaguely reflects a similar message pursued by Conrad’s novella, due to the difference in time period, place setting, and circumstances in which the film was created. Conrad wrote his novella during British colonization, focusing upon imperialism. Coppola’s film similarly focused upon the barbaric nature of man, which demonstrates the insanity of the Vietnam War. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad centers his main focus upon the journey of Marlow, a sailor, who travels into

Sam was walking home from the Morrisville Market with a full bag of groceries. The sun was hot and no clouds were in sight. He smelled the fresh bread being baked in the shops. He felt like nothing could go wrong, and oh how wrong he was about that. The sidewalk was cracked right in front of Lana’s Diner glowed an odd red light. “What the……AHHHHHH!” When a garbage truck pulled up the garbage man found Sam lying face down on the sidewalk with a \

Well, today’s the big day! I woke up and burst out of bed, almost falling over in the process. I ran downstairs to wake up my Mom and Dad, but of course, they were already up and running.

My hands were sweating against the microphone in my hand, I could feel the anxiety throughout the air on the big stage. The only thing separating me, I mean us, from the large crowd filled with haters, supporters, and who knows what else; was the velvet red curtain that she knew in no time would disappear, revealing me and my friends to our fate.

Countless quest narratives – ranging from modern texts all the way back to ancient texts – have all conformed to a certain archetypal structure. Christopher Vogler writes:

When Joseph Conrad sat down to write Heart of Darkness over a century ago he decided to set his tale amidst his own country's involvement in the African Congo. Deep in the African jungle his character would make his journey to find the Captain gone astray. Over eighty years later Francis Ford Coppola's Willard would take his journey not in Afica but in the jungles of South Asia. Coppola's Film, Apocalypse Now uses the backdrop of the American Vietnam War yet the similarities between the Conrad's novel and Coppola's film remains constant and plenty.

In “The Open Boat”, four sailors survive their ship being wrecked and must continually fight to find land and to stay

Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now lacks the impact of its inspiration, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. While the basic elements of imperialism and human nature remain intact, the characters of the film bare little resemblance to their literary counterparts. The film serves as a re-interpretation of Conrad’s novella, updated from 19th-century British imperialism in the Congo to a critique of 20th-century U.S. imperialism in Southeast Asia. Coppola’s changes in setting and plot structure, however, force the film to sacrifice the character development so crucial in the literary work. This detracts from the overall effectiveness of the film.